sto­ries by Shas­tri Boodan

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has promised vil­lagers of Bras­so in cen­tral Trinidad that their pipe borne sup­ply will be back on to­day af­ter a month.

The au­thor­i­ty’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er, Daniel Plen­ty, yes­ter­day said, “The sup­ply to the Bras­so area will be back to­mor­row (to­day).”

Plen­ty said there were re­cent chal­lenges that af­fect­ed the sup­ply to the area, which in­clud­ed a leak on the Freeport Wa­ter Works raw wa­ter line, which re­duced pro­duc­tion at the plant. This was re­paired on March 26.

There was al­so a me­chan­i­cal prob­lem at the Grand Cou­va Boost­er Sta­tion, which was ad­dressed on March 31.

“The sup­ply to sev­er­al af­fect­ed ar­eas is be­ing nor­malised at this time, with Bras­so ex­pect­ed to be served by Tues­day evening,” he said yes­ter­day.

Plen­ty gave the as­sur­ance hours af­ter res­i­dents of the area demon­strat­ed along the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road, de­mand­ing that WASA give them a re­li­able sup­ply.

Spokesman for the res­i­dents, Al­li­son Gar­cia, said vil­lagers are not pre­pared to dig wells or con­struct pit la­trines and con­tin­ue to pay wa­ter rates at the same time.

Gar­cia said vil­lagers had to de­pend on wa­ter from a near­by stag­nant riv­er to flush toi­lets or con­duct a “com­mu­nal flush” af­ter an en­tire fam­i­ly us­es the toi­let. She said there had been no wa­ter for more than a month in Bras­so.

Di­ana Joseph said she bought a truck load of wa­ter for $1,200 from a pri­vate con­trac­tor to sup­ply her home.

Joseph said she re­quest­ed truck borne wa­ter from WASA and the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC), but claimed she got a run-around.

Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes told Guardian Me­dia the com­mu­ni­ties of Bras­so and Gran Cou­va have been with­out wa­ter since around March 8.

Hen­ry Awong, chair­man of the CT­TRC, said the cor­po­ra­tion has two wa­ter trucks that can de­liv­er a max­i­mum of two loads each per day.

How­ev­er, Awong said the CT­TRC con­tracts wa­ter trucks to sup­ply ar­eas that are with­out a pipe borne sup­ply in the dry sea­son. Awong said the CT­TRC reach­es out to res­i­dents that make re­quests for a sup­ply. He said in ar­eas with a pipeline, the onus was on WASA to sup­ply its cus­tomers.